Many books are written about ‘success’; May lectures are given on ‘success’; many researches are done on ‘success’. All has been focused on how ‘success’ happens; what makes it happen, and how one experiences ‘success’.

In my conversations with people, this is a subject discussed a lot. We all want to be successful and have successful experiences /stories in our personal and interpersonal relationships. But what constitutes success? The answer is subjective and varies from one person to another. We all have different measuring sticks to define and evaluate ‘success’.

In my conversations with people, I came to realize that the following are essential ingredients to ‘success’:

1) Your purpose is an engine to ‘success’: If you don’t have a purpose for changing things in yourself, you are not going to begin this process. You would need ‘purpose’ and reason for wanting to bring about change in your life. Find your purpose;then everything will follow.

2) Your desire and willingness to becoming a successful person: Willingness manifests itself in your actions, words and thinking process. Your purpose will guide you what actions to take! Make them align! For instance, when you are willing to bring about changes in your life, you try different things, you seek help, you read materials to enhance your position in relation to what you are planning to change, and so forth.

3) Your relationship with yourself: You need to become aware of your ‘losing strategies’ that are self-defeating and self -sabotaging, that prevent you from aligning your actions and your purpose. For instance, you will have less of self- ‘blaming’ and you will give more attention to your energy and its purpose. Develop a gentle, kind and friendly relationship with yourself.

4) Your relationship with people around you: If there are family members or friends close to you, pay attention to the quality of your relationship with each of them; pay attention to their relationships with you. Their support, positive energy and encouragement would contribute greatly to your experience of ‘success’. Check who is around you and pay attention to their contribution to your life plans.

5) Your relationship with community: Find a way to extend your actions and purpose that are beneficial to you to the community that you are living in. Go bigger than self; Move away from wanting ‘success’ for yourself; become more generous and give back to community!

Any other ingredients that you come to know that is not mentioned here? Feel free to share them with me. Looking forward to your reflection!

Sometimes people, who experience conflicts with themselves or others or situations, need a new lens to look at themselves, others and situations differently. People are experts, resourceful and knowledgeable in their lives. What prevents people, sometimes, from accessing their own resources and knowledge is that they zoom into their problems too closely; therefore, their ability to locate everything in its own place and see things in a broader context is compromised and minimized.

In my therapeutic conversations with individuals and couples, I use metaphors to widen people’s perspective to allow them to see things from various angles. I use metaphors to assist them to see what constitutes and feeds their problems. People usually respond to metaphors in a meaningful way. Metaphors are to help people to re-view their actions or thinkings in a new way and support them to see how they somehow contribute to the presence of problems in their life.

“A therapeutic metaphor is an experience that allows one to learn about more than just that experience” (Wikipedia). Metaphors that i use in my therapeutic conversations include short stories or poems or songs.

A metaphor allows one to compare his/her situation with what is said in a story or in lyrics of a poem or song; it makes one identify some similarities and resemblance between two situations. The symbolic representation of one’s situation in a story or song or poem affects one’s thinking and allows a new meaning or explanation to form. This new meaning or explanation can lead to a possible solution to one’s predicament. Metaphors somehow connect the dots for a person and supports him/her to make a new sense of his/her situation.

In one of my sessions with Vikki, I played a song for her. She listened to the song and became tearful. Vikki is an individual who had experienced ‘abuse’ and had practiced ‘self blaming’ for years. The song affected her greatly and brought a new realization to her. It made her change the way she thought of herself. She took the lyrics into heart and said to me that she has been carrying a huge responsibility for so many years; she needed to place the blame where it was belonged to; she didn’t want to carry it anymore”. We carried on our conversations for a few more sessions when she was able to free herself from the ‘misplaced blame’.

Metaphors carry power, insight, and wisdom. When they are used appropriately, when they resonate with people’s life story, they make a significant difference in people’s life. Metaphors have ability to shed light on people’s understanding of self, others and situations. When they are used in therapeutic conversations, people’s awareness is exponentially increased and consequently the desired change takes place in their lives.

Parents / care givers are usually more concerned about their children when children’s misbehaving occur in different settings such as home, school and daycare. Children usually respond to problems with similar behaviours. Why do you think it is? You may have different answers to this question based on your philosophical and psychological perspectives. To me children’s problems are socially constructed and relational based. Changing behaviours seem to be difficult when social/ relational aspects, that contributing to the maintenance of behaviours, are not taken into consideration.

Having social/ relational lens on when analyzing children’s difficulties, I usually propose to parents, who consult with me, meetings with educators at schools or daycares to learn more about what maintains or contributes to children’s difficulties at schools or daycares.

What I have come to realize is that most teachers and parents are focused on ‘behaviours’ and want ‘misbehaving’ go away. It is sometimes seen that educators give attention to social/relational conditions that maintain children’s misbehaving. Most parents and educators have been trained to use ‘behavioural management techniques’ to solve children’s social/ relational problems. They mostly complain about its ineffectiveness to bring about change to children’s behaviours. The most well known technique that is often used in our educational system is ‘the reward system’.

“The reward system’ has a long history. It goes back to the early 20th century when behavioural psychologists such as Pavlov and Skinner experimented and invented terms such as ‘classical condition and operant condition’. “Operant conditioning” is a form of learning during which an individual modifies the occurrence and form its own behavior due to the reinforcement of the behaviour. Operant behavior “operates” on the environment and is maintained by its reinforcement and punishment. Classical Conditioning is when two stimuli are presented in close succession repeatedly, until the response given to one becomes associated with the other”. (Wikipedia)

In my consultation meetings with parents and educators, I invite them to talk about the downside and upside of using ‘the reward system’ when interacting with children. It is acknowledged that ‘the reward system’ might be useful when it is practiced with very young children- under 4 years old; however, it doesn’t seem to work for older children.

‘The reward system’ focuses on building and strengthening “I-It” (Martin Buber) relationships between children and caregivers/educators. “The reward system’ supports children to have and maintain relationships with objects/ desired rewards. It objectifies children’s relationships with adults and makes children think that adults are means to achieving their desired objects/rewards.

As you see, it is very difficult to break the relationship between ‘children and rewards’ when this relationship is protected and nurtured by many players such as primary caregivers and educators and in a larger context, by our dominant culture; consumerism and individualism.

This is the problem that most parents and educators face, today, and often talk about in my consultation meetings. Parents and educators, like children, are caught into this pattern of ‘I-It” (Martin Buber) as well. “I-It” pattern of relationship is a pattern that promotes instant gratification, use of means to achieve desired ends, and disconnection from personal relational and social ethics.

Continuing to use and teach ‘the reward system’ in our educational system will have long lasting negative effects on our society as a whole; it prevents parents and educators to disentangle their relationships from the “I-It” pattern; it slows down the process of supporting children to build relationships based on “I-You” and “I-Thou” as Martin Buber suggests as a way of re-valuing human relationships and re-constructing our society based on humanitarian values and principles.

Initiating conversations on the negative effects of ‘the reward system’ on children, parents and educators is essential. We need to be open to exploring and incorporating patterns of ‘I-You’ and ‘I- Thou’ in our relationships with children. We need to engage each other into conversations to give more attention to the importance of ‘concept development’ and formation of values and ethics in our children’s lives.

In my consultation meetings with parents and educators, we cultivate, collect and circulate ideas and knowledge to help children internalize concepts such as respect, empathy, sharing and so forth. Our hope is our conversations will have ripple effects on other aspects of children and educators’ lives and reduce social/ relational problems in children’s lives in a long run.

I would like to encourage you to give some thought to this matter and invite others to be open to reviewing, debating and changing the dominant pattern of “I-It” in our interactions with ourselves and others and also be supportive of the alternative pattern of relationship/communication, “I-Thou”, with one another.

As a family therapist, I am interested in inviting and involving men to counselling sessions. I believe that men have a lot to say about their relationships with their partners and children. What has prevented them from being more active and participant in their family life perhaps has to do with social, cultural and historical realities and/or myths that affected men for many centuries.

I am going to share with you one of the important contributing factors that influence family members’ interactions and relationships with one another. This particular fact is ‘not growing up with a particular male figure like a father’.

Children with any family backgrounds (social and economic status, race, religion, culture, sexual orientation and ethnic backgrounds) are at risk of experiencing living and growing up without fathers. The important role of fathers in children’s life need to be more pronounced.

It is said our today men used to be fragile sensitive young boys. Men used to be young boys who lived in family and possibly experienced hardship, abuse, and disconnection. ‘Growing up without fathers’ has significant impact on young boys’ identity as a person.

Some families with children, who seek counselling, are concerned about their children’s emotional and behavioural and social wellbeing. When we talk about children’s difficulties, we often realize that parents’ personal and emotional difficulties play an important role on children’ social and emotional problems.

It is clear that the wellbeing of children is linked to the wellbeing of their parents; particularly, when children are young. Creating a safe and trusting environment for ‘fathers without fathers’ to speak about their experiences of hardship and difficulties is a key to supporting ‘fathers without fathers’ to re-connect with themselves and their children.

In our counselling sessions, ‘fathers without fathers’ shared the effects of dominant cultural myths/expectations on men and their roles in family. They expressed their experiences of disconnection, pressure, and confusion around their roles in relationships with other men as well as with women and children.

Men who shared their wisdom and challenges in our sessions were very enthusiastic about their part in changing the dominant cultural beliefs about men. They felt that initiating conversations in a safe environment is the first step to tackle this social problem. They expressed their willingness to support other men to become more comfortable with sharing and addressing their emotional social problems.

Their wisdom and knowledge were noted during our conversations. I got their permission to share with you some of their ideas that generated in our conversations. They are as follows:

▪ We, men, collectively need to challenge ‘superhero’ ideas about the role of men in family and adjust our expectations to make them more realistic and collaborative

▪ We, as a community of men, need to get together and dissect the dominant discourses about manhood which are supported by social and cultural beliefs

▪ We, men, need to encourage each other to work with our partners and utilize each other’s strengths instead of perpetuating male domination discourse.

▪ We, as a community, need to fund programs that address what ‘fathers without fathers’ experienced in the past, that support men to develop new relationships with themselves and others, and shape their identity as a person.

We, men, are hopeful that our actions be beneficial to our children and make them more connected to themselves, their family members and their communities.

‘Single mothers’ experience significant difficulties with raising their children alone, living without partners, and supporting their family financially, and so on. Here is the story of a single mother, Sue, who points out social problems that led to her current status in society as a single parent.

Sue came to my office to talk about the ‘stress’ that she had been experiencing for a few years. She talked about the responsibility of taking care of two children, 7 and 11, her full time job responsibility, and isolation as contributing factors to the ‘stress’. She felt it was very difficult to take care of and fulfill all the responsibilities alone.

Despite the reasons that lead to ‘single parenting’, we all know that ‘single parenting’ is not a desirable status for anyone in family; everyone in the family is affected by this phenomenon. For instance, children may grow up without fathers, mothers may take many responsibilities to fulfill family obligations; and fathers may experience further isolation and disconnection from their families and loved ones.

Sue shared the effects of ‘stress’ on her as a mother and as a person. She named the major source of ‘stress’ as the following: her responsibilities and family obligations, children’s lives and their education and their future. These have been significantly overwhelming to her. She was proud of herself to be able to provide a safe and violence- free environment for her children but she felt overwhelmed and exhausted by all responsibilities.

In one of our sessions, she questioned what society has been doing for men to address their personal concerns. We talked about the barriers for men to get help. We reviewed and reflected on the historical, cultural and social reasons that prevented men for many decades to avoid expressing themselves. We discussed the presence of invisible pressures, abuse and violence in young boys’ life and their effects on their adulthood.

Sue was very concerned about raising her two sons without father; she was afraid of the negative effects of not having any particular male figure in their lives.

We explored some pragmatic practical solutions to address her children’s needs. However, we acknowledged that she was voicing a very important concern in our society and her problems weren’t only hers. Those concerns are, as a matter of fact, our social problems. She said her dream is to increase social awareness and address this predicament socially.

I would like to share with you some ideas that we explored in our meetings as possible ways of preventing the expansion of ‘single parenting’ in our society. They are as follows:

▪ De-stigmatize and encourage men to ask for help when needed

▪ Support men to repair and develop ‘trust’ in their intimate relationships

▪ Support ‘fathers without father’ and assist them with their personal social concerns

▪ Promote non- patriarchal ways of connecting with women

▪ Discussion on equality and its impact on relationships between men and women

▪ Promote both genders to learn how to respond to one another in a non- confrontational and non- aggressive ways

▪ Support both genders resolve conflicts/ disagreements peacefuly

▪ Increase both genders’ understanding of their personal power and ethics

▪ and more …

Please share if you have some ideas in this regrad.

Hope to create a new pathway to healthy, connecting and trusting relationships!

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Mary and John came to my office in the past fall. Both looked discouraged and were doubtful of their decision to come to the couple counseling session.

We began our conversation by talking about their concerns and hopes for the counseling sessions. Both talked about their efforts to make things better in their couple relationship. They said that not getting a preferred result made them feel frustrated, disappointed and doubtful. They felt it was hard to release their couple relationship from the grip of the problems.

They were concerned about their difficulty in listening to each other. They said “we work against each other. If one of us does something for the other one, the other party takes it negatively. We have become defensive and comfortable in retaliating, which hurt us more. Our intention is to fix the problem but any attempts we make works against us.”

Mary and John said, “We want to bring back what we used to have but it seems to be impossible”. They described how they met, what they liked about each other; what they appreciated about each other and what caused them to feel distanced and hurt.

They said “we used to have a strong emotional connection, but it seems to be all gone; our trust and faith on each other have gone down; anything we do is a problem for another one”. They were both in tears when they discovered how they were affected by ‘the emotional disconnection’.

They both expressed their commitment to do their best to understand how ‘the emotional disconnection’ was formed and how their actions and thinking contributed and fueled its formation. They wanted to be able to reconnect with one another again.

Despite their commitment to each other, Mary said she doesn’t have a faith that she would get the desired outcome. Mary expressed doubts about their abilities to repair their relationship. We spent a few sessions talking about what values Mary and John gave to their relationship. John and Mary shared their understanding and knowledge of each other and both were encouraged to search for their commonalities. Both identified their shared values as determination, persistence, honesty, and making things work. Our conversation led to the exploration of shared responsibility for what was done in the past. They both became interested in reconciliation and forgiveness. They were asked to listen to each other as if their best friend were talking to them. They were able to hear each other differently. Consequently they said they had a breakthrough and an epiphany.

The couple agreed to work together again; they wanted to bring back what they used to have. Mary and John shared stories that were evident of the times they experienced pain, hardship and joy together.

On the second last session, Mary and John came to my office with their son, Jimmy. They said ‘we want to hear what Jimmy has to say and what he noticed about our family interactions’. Jimmy was an 18-year-old boy going to university.

Jimmy shared his understanding of the recent developments in his parents’ interactions. He said that he was surprised to see that they were not talking at each other anymore. He was pleased with the absence of ‘arguments, competition, anger, and disappointments’ in the family. He said: “ they look happy with each other; they make me feel good about myself; their happiness makes me feel good about being part of this family; my relationship with my dad improved a lot; he spends time with me and asks me about school; he gives me advice that I think every son needs to get from his dad; my mom looks happier; she doesn’t cry anymore; she talks to me calmly; I feel good talking to my parents; I am not ashamed of being their son anymore”.

Mary and John also noticed some changes in Jimmy’s behaviors. They said, “ Jimmy stays home now; he invites his friends home; he tells us what he is up to; it feels that we are more involved with each other’s lives”.

We met for one more session to close our meetings. Mary and John told me what helped them rebuild their couple relationship. They said, ‘ We learned that it wasn’t OK with us to give up on what is important to us; we learned to synchronize our intentions and behaviors to save our relationship. We did not let our relationship die which makes us proud of ourselves”.

It was agreed that their wisdom and knowledge would be passed on to other couples that have similar difficulties in their lives.

If you would like to rebuild your couple relationship; or if you know anyone who would like to do so, please come visit me. For further info, please visit my website at www.taherehbarati.com

Looking forward to having a conversation with you!

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Johnny and his mother, Mary, came to my office last year. Johnny and Mary felt that ‘the anger’ was getting Johnny into trouble and wanted to do something about it. Both said that Johnny’s brother, Jason, and Johnny’s father, Bob, didn’t know what to do about ‘the anger’ either. As we talked, we realized that ‘the anger’ was so big that everyone in the family had it as a major influence in their life. I was very curious to learn more about ‘the anger’ and asked them to invite Jason and Bob to our next meeting.

We began our conversation to find out more about the presence of ‘the anger’ in the family interactions. We talked for a while; each family member told me about what ‘the anger’ made them do, think and feel; Mary and Bob described ‘the anger’; Johnny and Jason drew pictures of ‘the anger’ that each experienced in their lives.

We posted the pictures of ‘the anger’ on the wall; we were all were looking at them and trying to figure out what to do with ‘the anger’. They all convinced me that they didn’t want to have ‘the anger’ in their life anymore. As we were looking at them, we found some similarity and differences amongst the pictures. We noticed that they were all working together against what Mary, Bob, Johnny and Jason wanted for their lives. Johnny said, “I think ‘the anger’ has learned to play a trick on me”. We discovered the tricks that ‘the anger’ played on him. In doing this, they became further aware of avenues that allowed ‘the anger’ to walk in; they learned about the triggers that invited ‘the anger’ in their relationship with one another.

We worked together to discover new things about ‘the anger’. Johnny was able to see a link between his fist and the colour of ‘the anger’; Mary was able to detect how intense ‘the anger’ gets when she doesn’t have enough sleep; Bob was able to pay attention to his tone of voice and its influence on Mary and the children; and Jason discovered that ‘the anger’ doesn’t like ‘sharing’. “The more we talked about ‘the anger’, the smaller and smaller ‘the anger’ became”, Mary said.

In one of our meetings Mary said they, as a family, developed a very playful and fun way of talking about ‘the anger’ at home; they learned to support each other when ‘the anger’ walks into their lives. Bob said they teach and learn from each other new ways of keeping ‘the anger’ out of their relationships.

In Our 10th sessions Johnny gave me a letter as soon as he came in. Mary looked at me and said ‘this is a letter that Johnny dictated to me; I wrote it for him. I am very proud of him.’ In his letter he said: “My birthday was last week; I am one year older now. On my birthday, I kicked ‘the anger’ out of our house; I opened the window, and tossed it out of the window. I don’t want ‘the anger’ in my life anymore; I don’t want it at home; I don’t want it to get me into trouble. ”

Mary and Bob told me what Johnny and Jason had been doing between our sessions. Mary and Bob were in tears and said, “We are learning from our children. We always knew Johnny has determination but we never thought he would teach us this. We are going to stick together in this”.

Mary and Bob said, “Since his birthday everything has changed in our home; it is quiet, peaceful, and more pleasant. Everyone does what they have to do; each does their own share; even our dog is calmer”. Bob said that “We are going to stay united against ‘the anger’ and we don’t let it tear our family apart.”

It was an emotional session. The family’s efforts and unity in their battle were acknowledged. We felt that life without ‘the anger’ was more pleasant, respectful and fun.

In our closing conversation, Johnny and his family gave me permission to share their knowledge and wisdom with other children and families who have the same challenge in life. They felt proud of their achievements and wanted to help others. Their significant inside knowledge was passed on to others.

If you are interested in discovering further the problems that bother you and learning more about the problems’ tricks, come visit me. If you know people who can benefit from my service, please connect them to me. For further information, visit my website www.taherehbarati.com

Looking forward to having a conversation with you.

Happy Possibilities!

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Last spring, Sara came to my office. She appeared to be very nervous and worried about her family’s interactions. She began to talk about her concerns for her partner, John, and their daughter Emma. She talked about ‘the conflicts’ between her and John that made her concerned about their daughter’s life. She was upset that she wasn’t able to protect her daughter from ‘the conflicts’.

She said “my daughter is living in a state of panic everyday, there is no joy in her life; I don’t see her eyes sparkling anymore; she doesn’t want to go out; she doesn’t want to go to school; she is sensitive to the tone of our voices and looks at us when we ‘fight’”. She said: “I am here to end this; I need your help to end this”.

We discussed what ‘the conflicts’ looked like in her family life and what effects it had had on her relationship with self and others. I extended my invitation to her partner, John, and their daughter, Emma, and asked her to give them my invitation. I wanted to see them all; I was interested in hearing John’s concerns for Emma. I wondered if Sara and John shared the same concern.

They all came in; such a pleasure to see them all together as a family!

We began to talk. John said he was concerned about Emma too. He said, “Emma is the apple of my eye and I don’t want anything negative to affect her”. Emma was very quiet in our meeting; she played quietly and didn’t say a word but she listened to what her parents told me about her; she quietly discovered how important she was to her parents and how much her parents loved and cared about her.

As our conversations developed, Emma and I gathered that like us, her parents didn’t like ‘the conflicts’ and wanted to do something about it.

Emma became more comfortable and less ‘nervous’ as our meeting went on. At the end of our session, I asked her if she would come back to our meetings again. She nodded. Her parents interpreted her nod as a big yes.

I was pleased that Emma was part of our meetings; she witnessed her parents’ commitment and looked excited to see her parents deciding to put a stop to ‘the conflicts’.

We planned to invite Emma to our meetings on a monthly basis; however, we planned to continue our weekly couple sessions with both parents.

I looked forward to seeing Emma’s reactions and reflection on her parents’ progress each month.

Sara and John attended our meetings every week; we talked and characterized ‘the conflicts’. We learned what ‘the conflicts’ have done to them as a person, a couple and parents. Their hopes and visions for their couple relationship were explored.

As they became aware of and traced the footprints of ‘the conflicts’ in their relationship, they became closer to their vision and hopes for their family.

Emma came to our meetings every month; she began to talk; she didn’t appear to be panicked anymore. Her parents talked about her achievements at home and school. She smiled anytime her parents broke the news of her progress and achievements. Emma had very expressive eyes; her eyes were communicating with me how she felt about her family. Her parents shared stories of her strengths, abilities and hobbies. I learned dancing was one of her abilities.

In our last meeting, Emma and her parents came to my office very excited. Emma was wearing her pink ballerina dress with a pink pair of shoes and a pink handbag. She brought a CD with her too. Her parents said ‘Emma would like to show you how she dances’. Emma played the music and began to dance. We were all quiet and almost in tears while watching her dancing.

We reflected on Emma’s performance in life. Sara, John and I were amazed to see how Emma freed herself up from ‘panic and anxiety’. Sara and John realized how influential they are in their daughter’s life; they found out that ‘the conflicts’ were taking life out of their daughter and themselves; they became more determined to keeping ‘the conflicts’ out of their interactions. They said “they want to have a happy family and a daughter who smiles and dances and has fun”.

After 20 sessions of collaborative conversations with Emma’s parents, Emma became the child that her parents always wanted; Sara and John became the parents they always wished to be.

Without Sara and John’s commitment to wanting what was important to them and without their efforts to put limits on ‘the conflicts’, what was achieved wouldn’t have been possible.

If you would like to enhance your couple relationship and your children’s lives or if you know a person(s) who can benefit from my service, please visit my website at www.taherehbarati.com and make an appointment or a referral.